SoylentNews

fliptop [soylentnews.org] writes:

The Times Leader recently ran an editorial [timesleaderonline.com] that talked about the decline of journalism, social media companies' attempts to control the narrative, and how institutions of higher learning are telling students what to think instead of teaching them how to think:

A society that believes in and defends truth can endure any number of other shortcomings. But our society has become infected with lies. Worse, these lies are perpetrated by some of the most visible people and institutions in our society. When those leaders create or perpetuate lies, millions of unsuspecting people are misled.

[...] We should be able to count on our journalists to do serious investigative work to expose those who are deceiving the public and hold them accountable.

Social media companies take this even further by shadowbanning, suspending or outright expelling from their platforms those who are doing investigative work and those who are trying to bring accurate information to the public’s attention. These Big Tech companies claim to be “fact-checkers” trying to prevent false information; instead, they help those who are disseminating inaccurate or deceitful information by blocking the public’s access to truth.

Our institutions of higher education should be ground zero for the pursuit of truth. Instead, our younger generations are being taught that America is a fundamentally racist country.

But all this is only half the story. Reason.com just published a story about Daniel Elder, a composer who's been blackballed [reason.com] for condemning arson:

Until last year, Daniel Elder—a 34-year-old musician who lives in Nashville, Tennessee—had a promising career ahead of him. The theme of the prize-winning composer's work, truth through emotion, is evident across his catalogue of choral music, including his debut commercial album, The Heart's Reflection [apple.com].

Elder isn't composing very much these days. And even if he were, no one in the industry is willing to buy his work. His publisher has blackballed him. Local choral directors refuse to program his music for fear of provoking a backlash. They won't even let him sing in the choir.

[...] What happened? Elder made a short statement on Instagram that went viral during the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020.

The young composer is hardly the first person to suffer significant professional consequences after causing a social media firestorm: Virtually every day [reason.com] brings more examples [reason.com] of people [reason.com] saying slightly [reason.com] offensive things [reason.com] that stoke the fury of some mob. The problem is now so exhaustively covered in the media that "cancel culture" has become a top issue for many Republican voters [fivethirtyeight.com], even though conservatives engage in cancelation [washingtonpost.com][sic] as well.

But even among those cancel-culture excesses, Elder's supposed transgression stands out as particularly absurd. Though he was tarred and feathered as a racist contrarian, the Instagram post that caused all the trouble was neither racist nor contrarian. An overwhelming majority of people likely agree with the sentiment behind it, which was basically this: Arson is bad.

George Orwell, call your office [wikipedia.org].

Original Submission